The Age of Dystopia PDF Download

Author: Louisa MacKay Demerjian
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 144388975X
Category : Dystopian films
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
This book examines the recent popularity of the dystopian genre in literature and film, as well as connecting contemporary manifestations of dystopia to cultural trends and the implications of technological and social changes on the individual and society as a whole. Dystopia, as a genre, reflects our greatest fears of what the future might bring, based on analysis of the present. This book connects traditional dystopian works with their contexts and compares these with contemporary versions. It centers around two main questions: Why is dystopia so popular now? And, why is dystopia so popular with young adult audiences? Since dystopia reflects the fears of society as a whole, this book will have broad appeal for any reader, and will be particularly useful to teachers in a variety of settings, such as in a high school or college-level classroom to teach dystopian literature, or in a comparative literature classroom to show how the genre has appeared in multiple locales at different times. Indeed, the book’s interdisciplinary nature allows it to be of use in classes focussing on politics, bioethics, privacy issues, women’s studies, and any number of additional topics.

Author: Barbara Brodman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1683931688
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 245

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Book Description
Utopia and Dystopia in the Age of Trump:Images from Literature and Visual Arts treats literature, film, television series, and comic books dealing with utopian and dystopian worlds reflecting on or anticipating our current age. From Henry James’s dreamlike utopia of “The Great Good Place” to the psychotic world of Brett Easton Ellis’s American Psycho, from science fiction and recent horror films, television adaptations of books such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and new series such as Black Mirror to the repressive Hitlerian dystopia of Katherine Burdekin’s Swastika Night, the contributors examine the development of scenarios that either prefigure the rise of individuals such as Donald J. Trump or suggest alternatives to them. Ultimately, one might say of the worlds presented here, viewed from different social and political perspectives: one person’s utopia is another’s dystopia. This is the fifth in a series of books edited by Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan, and published by Rowman & Littlefield with Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. The Universal Vampire: Origins and Evolution of a Legend and Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic (both in 2013) focused on the vampire legend in traditional and modern thought. The Supernatural Revamped: From Timeworn Legends to Twenty-First-Century Chic (2016) examined a range of supernatural beings in literature, film, and other forms of popular culture. Apocalyptic Chic: Visions of the Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse in Literature and Visual Arts (2017) dealt with legends and images of the apocalypse and post-apocalypse in film and graphic arts, literature and lore from early to modern times, and from peoples and cultures around the world.

Author: Luke O'Neil
Publisher: OR Books
ISBN: 1682192156
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
When Luke O’Neil isn’t angry, he’s asleep. When he’s awake, he gives vent to some of the most heartfelt, political and anger-fueled prose to power its way to the public sphere since Hunter S. Thompson smashed a typewriter’s keys. Welcome to Hell World is an unexpurgated selection of Luke O’Neil’s finest rants, near-poetic rhapsodies, and investigatory journalism. Racism, sexism, immigration, unemployment, Marcus Aurelius, opioid addiction, Iraq: all are processed through the O’Neil grinder. He details failings in his own life and in those he observes around him: and the result is a book that is at once intensely confessional and an energetic, unforgettable condemnation of American mores. Welcome to Hell World is, in the author’s words, a “fever dream nightmare of reporting and personal essays from one of the lowest periods in our country in recent memory.” It is also a burning example of some of the best writing you’re likely to read anywhere.

Author: Edyta Materka
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253029090
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Oral histories on life in the eastern German region annexed by Poland following World War II. Toward the end of the Second World War, Poland’s annexation of eastern German lands precipitated one of the largest demographic upheavals in European history. Edyta Materka travels to her native village in these “Recovered Territories,” where she listens carefully to rich oral histories told by original postwar Slavic settlers and remaining ethnic Germans who witnessed the metamorphosis of eastern Germany into western Poland. She discovers that peasants, workers, and elites adapted war-honed informal strategies they called “kombinacja” to preserve a modicum of local agency while surviving the vicissitudes of policy formulated elsewhere, from Stalinist collectivization to the shock doctrine of neoliberalism. Informality has taken many forms: as a way of life, a world view, an alternate historical text, a border memory, and a means of magical transformation during times of crisis. Materka ventures beyond conventional ethnography to trace the diverse historical, literary, and psychological dimensions of kombinacja. Grappling with the legacies of informality in her own transnational family, Materka searches for the “kombinator within” on the borderlands and shares her own memories of how the Polish diaspora found new uses for kombinacja in America. “Rare and exceptionally well-researched analysis of an invisible practice.” —Alena Ledeneva, University College London “Materka has produced an eloquently written, exciting, and meticulously analyzed ethnographic history that marks an alternative to the vast majority of strictly archival-based historical literature on the German-Polish borderlands. Within the field of Polish history, this book is also an important contribution as the first extensive work on the critical role of informality in the politics, society, and economy of People’s Poland.” —H-Poland “By concentrating on the local strategies of combination in the areas of uprootedness, Materka has made an interesting and valuable contribution to our knowledge of human behavior. References and the use of Polish words for important concepts are exemplary. . . . [H]er collection of narratives provides food for thought on the relation between formal regulation and human ingenuity.” —Baltic Worlds

Author: Rhiannon Evans
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134487878
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Evans explores the tropes of the utopian and dystopian in ancient Roman texts. She addresses the ways in which concepts of the idealized and degenerate functioned as metaphor and symbol in Roman discourses. Utopia and its inverse are vital markers of cultural yearning and desire.

Author: Eduardo Valls Oyarzun
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793621454
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
“Nature, thou art my goddess”—Edmund’s bold assertion in King Lear could easily inspire and, at the same time, function as a lamentation of the inadequate respect of nature in culture. In this volume, international experts provide multidisciplinary exploration of the insubordinate representations of nature in modern and contemporary literature and art. The work foregrounds the need to reassess how nature is already, and has been for a while, striking back against human domination. From the perspective of literary studies, art, history, media studies, ethics and philosophy, and ethnology and anthropology, Avenging Nature highlights the need of assessing insurgent discourses that—converging with counter-discourses of race, gender or class—realize the empowerment of nature from its subaltern position. Acknowledging the argument that cultural representations of nature establish a relationship of domination and exploitation of human discourse over nonhuman reality and that, in consequence, our regard for nature as humanist critics is instrumental and anthropocentric, the present volume advocates for the view that the time has come to finally perceive nature’s vengeance and to critically probe into nature’s ongoing revenge against the exploitation of culture.

Author: Mirna Nel
Publisher: AOSIS
ISBN: 1991271093
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
In a modern and fast-evolving technological world, precarity has become more notable. Digital transformation has ushered in an era of ‘datafication’, profoundly impacting societies and individuals in such a way that there are emerging complexities and potential vulnerabilities in our interactions with technology. Thus, it is crucial that the Humanities subjects focus on human beings, their culture and values. This book focuses on the challenges and opportunities experienced in the Digital Humanities. The main thesis of this book is on Digital Humanities in precarious times, while also reporting on topics and research methods in a variety of Humanities subject fields. Digital Humanities is a dynamic multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field that encompasses a wide array of disciplines, methodologies and approaches. It represents a fusion of computational methods with humanistic inquiry, leveraging technology to explore and analyse various facets of human culture, society and history. At its core, this field’s nature allows scholars from diverse backgrounds – including literature, history, linguistics, cultural studies and more – to collaborate and engage in innovative research projects that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries. All the chapters in this book represent a scholarly discourse and provide original research, they are based on different methodologies ranging from an interdisciplinary approach, a philosophical desk study, case studies, qualitative studies and a semi-structured survey.

Author: Santos Costa
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
"The Dangers of Technological Totalitarianism and Surveillance Capitalism: Inside the Algorithm" is a book that explores the dangers and challenges facing contemporary society in a world increasingly dominated by technology and characterized by massive data collection. In this book, the author addresses two distinct but interconnected dangers arising from the same technological tools. The first danger is the resurgence of extreme totalitarian regimes, in which technological tools are used to monitor and control the population in ways previously unimaginable. The author points out that these abuses can occur in various countries and warns of the potential for totalitarianism to become the norm in some nations. The second danger addressed is surveillance capitalism, an economic and social system based on the collection and exploitation of personal data. The author examines in detail the cycle of surveillance capitalism, from massive data collection to monetization, highlighting the risks of privacy, manipulation and social compliance that arise in this context. The book also explores the social and ethical consequences of surveillance capitalism, raising questions about corporate and government responsibility for controlling and transparently the algorithms that shape our lives. Throughout the chapters, the author presents case studies and concrete examples to illustrate the dangers and impacts of these phenomena. In addition, strategies of resistance and preservation of privacy are discussed, aimed at providing readers with a broader understanding of the meaning of human life in a world where increasingly important decisions are made by external algorithms. "The Dangers of Technological Totalitarianism and Surveillance Capitalism" is essential work for those seeking to understand the challenges and dilemmas of today's technological world. The book serves as a warning about the importance of reflecting on the importance of freedom, privacy, and human action in an age dominated by algorithms and surveillance systems.

Author: Michael Arthur Soares
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000984079
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Teaching with Dystopian Text propounds an exchange of spatial to pedagogical practices centered around “Orwellian Spaces,” signaling a new utility for teaching with dystopian texts in secondary education. The volume details the urgency of dystopian texts for secondary students, providing theoretical frameworks, classroom examples and practical research. The function of dystopian texts, such as George Orwell’s 1984, as social and political critique is demonstrated as central to their power. Teaching with Dystopian Text: Exploring Orwellian Spaces for Student Empowerment and Resilience makes a case that dystopian texts can be instrumental in the transfer of spatial practices to pedagogical practices. Pedagogical application creates links between the text and the student through defamiliarization, connecting the student to practices of resistance in the space of the classroom. The volume also addresses the challenges of teaching dystopian text in a dystopian educational climate including the COVID-19 lockdown. In addition to appealing to scholars and researchers of literacy education, language education and dystopian text, this book will also be a powerful yet accessible resource for secondary teachers as they address dystopian concerns with students in the complicated twenty-first century.

Author: Brenda Boudreau
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1666919853
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Abortion in Popular Culture: A Call to Action brings together scholars who examine depictions of abortion in film, television, literature, and social media. By examining texts ranging from classic television series such as Maude and Roseanne and recent films such as Never Rarely Sometimes Always and Unpregnant to dystopian novels and social-media campaigns, the essays analyze narrative styles, rhetorical strategies, and cinematic techniques, all of which shape cultural attitudes toward abortion. They also analyze cultural shifts, including the willingness or reluctance of networks, cable channels, and filmmakers to acknowledge changing trends in reproductive health such as medication abortion and the role that abortion plays in family planning. As a whole, however, the essays argue that popular culture can play a significant role in destigmatizing abortion by including a wider range of narratives and doing so with nuance and empathy. With reproductive rights under attack in the United States, each essay is a call to action for writers, producers, directors, showrunners, authors, and musicians to use their platforms to tell more positive and accurate stories about abortion.